A post shared by astitchmatism (@astitchmatism) on Jan 21, 2018 at 4:44am PST

Work, some play, and still too short days…

I’m trying to get as much spinning in as I can – it’s a wintertime activity for me – the movement keeps me warm and my hand’s aren’t sticking to the wool – although they’re very dry and sandpapery at times and snag the stuff too.

I finished the Jacob gradient and finally got a good rhythm for chain-plying. I spun it from light to dark, and the light is a fairly piss-poor yarn, but the darkest is fairly decent, so much more practice is in order, but I’m not sure how often I’ll choose this kind of ply…

A post shared by astitchmatism (@astitchmatism) on Jan 13, 2018 at 2:17pm PST

The new Jacob yarn was supposed to become a medium-ish poncho, but I haven’t swatched it yet – the yardage and weight are both less than I thought they would be, but maybe it will work? Otherwise I keep looking at vest-things, but I don’t wear the one I made that often.

A post shared by astitchmatism (@astitchmatism) on Jan 19, 2018 at 3:34pm PST

It’s a kitchen sink deal with a bunch of natural wool in greys and browns and a bit of dyed stuff in blues and teals with a touch of yellow and white. There’s a little more Jacob, but mostly Romney, Gotland, unregistered “Silkwool,” and a little Mohair, Merino, Angora, and mystery stuff. It must end up a sweater quantity, and I’m pretty sure I have to up the teal percentage a bit more and hit the stash for a few more ounces for insurance purposes, but I’m about 25% there.

And actually, this wasn’t the next spin after the gradient – I sampled the black alpaca, and decided that I can’t/don’t want to spin it in the raw and must send it out to be processed into roving or batts – I can’t/don’t want to hand card more than a few ounces here and there. If anyone has recommendations for a reasonable alpaca processor in the US, let me know!

Current knitting is still the same as before, and sewing has still been more mending than making.

Though there was one recently sewn hat with my first pompom, and became the first item where I actually used a pompom.

A post shared by astitchmatism (@astitchmatism) on Jan 5, 2018 at 1:38pm PST

Otherwise, I’m trying not to be on this machine much and have been burned by a recent online sale – a buyer publicly accused me of sewing fancy labels on cheap sweaters all because she bought one from me that was “too itchy” and wanted to return it when I didn’t accept returns – and it was a handknit Irish sweater with a rustic wool tweed yarn made in one of those crafty co-op deals (and certainly not a recognized “fancy” label) that I priced at only $9.99 forfuckssakes…